


Trespassing

by RealHousewivesOfDiagonAlley



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depression, Eventual Romance, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Post Hogwarts AU, Racism, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 14:46:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13883094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RealHousewivesOfDiagonAlley/pseuds/RealHousewivesOfDiagonAlley
Summary: After the war, Draco Malfoy volunteered to live as a muggle for one decade. Amidst weekly visits from his case worker, Ernie MacMillan, and his mundane job as a pharmacy worker, a chance encounter with a former school enemy complicates his desire to lead a quiet, reformed life.Meanwhile, Hermione Granger, head researcher for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, has been assigned the task of tracing the history of blood purism to rewrite laws for the Ministry of Magic. Still struggling with the psychological effects of the war and their entanglements with her own crisis of identity, Hermione may find solace in getting to know the man whom she once disdained.





	Trespassing

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for so long that I felt that I needed to force myself to finally post it. This is, as you can see, far more serious than "The Department of Magical Law Enforcement," but I hope that you can enjoy it nonetheless!

**_Present day_ **

 

It seemed to him like the train might go through his apartment as its loud vibrations caused his reflection on the silver teaspoon to tremble. He had just set the tea, cursing silently to himself for having to, for what seemed like the millionth time, resort to such inconvenient brewing methods. His eyes only left his trembling reflection when the voice of his guest––if he could even call this visitor a guest––broke the silent pause.

“Last week, you mentioned feeling like you were missing out on an important ‘duty’––that’s the word that you used, right? ‘Duty’? Can you tell me more about that, Mr. Malfoy?” As he did every Tuesday since two years after the end of the war, Ernie MacMillan looked up, earnestly awaiting Draco’s response. At the beginning, the nineteen-year-old Draco would have scoffed and told the former Hufflepuff to never mind his business (in crasser words, of course). They weren’t friends and he didn’t believe in the possibility of gaining anything from this Ministry-mandated psychotherapy program for “Rehabilitated Members of the Wizarding Community.” “What do you know about how I feel” he once barked. “Doesn’t the Division for Muggle Relations have anything better to do with their time aside from making my life more of a living hell than it already is?”

But their dynamic––though he couldn’t dare call it a friendship––had changed over the seven years of habitual visits from his caseworker. By no means did Draco like his former classmate or consider these visits anything other than a bureaucratic ritual, but talking to Ernie was, he had to admit, the closest he could and would ever get to experiencing his former life now. With his parents in exile and mostly, save for perfunctory birthday and holiday cards, out of reach, Ernie MacMillan was one of the last traces––save for Blaise Zabini––of the Wizarding World in Draco’s life.

He shrugged, finally ready to respond as he looked up to face his caseworker. “I suppose that I, in some ways, still regret…” As before, each word that approached what he wanted to say seemed to add weight to a lump in his throat. Taking a deep breath, he continued, “I regret that I never could apologize.”

As was his annoying habit, Ernie furrowed his eyebrows, nodding slowly while scribbling something––the _muggle way_ , Draco momentarily remembered––into a leatherbound notebook. “Apologize?” the sandy-haired man asked. “To who?”

“Whom, actually,” Draco corrected him with a smug smirk but earned no reaction other than Ernie’s scribbling.

“All right––to _whom_?” If that was the Hufflepuff’s expression of annoyance, it was far too polite and friendly for Draco’s attempt to be a smart ass.

Slightly dejected as usual, Draco stared at his tea set, as if trying make eye contact with the pistils on the sunflower pattern. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “I guess… everyone.”

“For what?” MacMillan asked.

“Not being… better, or whatever.”

“This is new.” Again furrowing his eyebrows, MacMillan then said, “Is your apology about just the war or everything before it as well?”

Draco rolled his eyes, exasperated. Ordinarily, this would the the point in their weekly sessions when he would choose to stop talking and let MacMillan sip the rest of his tea in an awkward silence. Today, however, he felt… generous was not the word. _Desperate_. Draco craved some sort of self-reconciliation that could make his decision to leave magic bearable and satisfactory. To cure this desperation meant, however, that he had to tell MacMillan about the _incident_.

Taking his momentary silence as customary reticence, MacMillan prodded. “Did anything happen to make you think about apologizing?”

Draco sighed. This was his chance. “I ran into Hermione Granger on Friday.” In the distance, he could hear the train departing, once again making all of the contents of his modest living room dance, as if a jolt of anxiety had been injected into the room. If MacMillan felt the vibrations, he had chosen to ignore them.

“Tell me about it.”

And so Draco did.

 

**_Four days ago_ **

 

The routine of everydayness taught Draco a sense of security in his new life. Every weekday and alternating Saturdays, he woke up between six and six forty-five––just in time to have a reasonable breakfast and buy a double shot latte while on his commute to the bus. After boarding the bus, he knew that it would take exactly fifteen minutes to reach his stop, which, when exiting on the southeast street corner, led him on a straight path to his place of work. Tossing his empty paper cup into a bin, Draco arrived, each day, at seven twenty-three to serve on the pharmaceutical team of a twenty-four hour drugstore near Bloomsbury Gardens.

His employment had been the result of what he still considered a poorly constructed aptitude test at the newly decreed Department of Muggle Relations––not to be confused, MacMillan reminded him, with the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. Thinking the exam would land him a career in a much more lucrative enterprise, Draco somewhat resented his position but privately thought his job more enjoyable than that of a lawyer or company head. Despite Snape’s favoritism, he had always felt that he genuinely exceeded in potions and had a good memory for ingredients and their effects. Being a pharmacist was nowhere near as exciting as brewing potions for an apothecary or doing healer-level research, but at least it let him learn and memorize.

Though, who was he kidding? His life had become a portrait of mundanity. At least, he thought, placing orders for Viagra was far less emotionally taxing than taking orders from a monstrous tyrant.  

Arriving at his station, Draco politely greeted his co-workers as he began reviewing the list of orders that he had placed the previous day and began organizing their labels. His eyes intently scanned the computer screen, looking through the list of new clients, and an alarm went off inside his head when his attention landed on one particular name.

 

_GRANGER, HERMIONE_ _19/09_

 

“Rhonda, when did this order come in? The one for the Lexapro that’s getting picked up today.”

His co-worker looked at the name on the list. “The one for Ms. Granger? I think Mark must have entered it last night. She should be coming to pick it up soon, I think. Anyone you know?”

He saw her before he could think of anything else to say. She was dressed like a muggle, wearing a wool coat that covered all except for her navy blue tights and dark gray ankle boots. Her hair, still wild, was pulled into a loose bun on top of her head, leaving her face fresh, clear, and recognizable for him. Despite the missing Hogwarts uniform, she was exactly as he remembered her: scowling at him and with eyes flaring with questions that he really did not feel like answering at the moment.

He knew that she had seen him as well even as he lowered his head behind the counter, hoping that Rhonda could take the cue and take over his place. Nevertheless, the middle aged pharmacist seemed unaware of Draco’s predicament, shuffling over the the back of the shelves to look over inventory.

Swallowing hard as he trained his countenance into an appearance of indifference. _Perhaps she won’t even recognize who I am_ , he thought, warily optimistic, _it has been a long time and I doubt Granger would even believe that this is me._ “How may I help you?”

Her furrowed eyebrows debunked his hopes. “Malfoy?”

 

**_Present day_ **

 

“Sorry, what is,” MacMillan reread his notes, “Lexapro?”

“It’s a selective serotonin reactive inhibitor,” he replied simply.

“...a what?”

“It’s an anti-depressant. It’s for muggles who suffer from depression, anxiety, panic attacks, or obsessive compulsive disorder.”

MacMillan looked confused. “Aren’t those muggle maladies?”

Draco sighed, trying to exhale his annoyance. “For a shrink, you really don’t know much, do you, MacMillan?”

 

**_Four days ago_ **

 

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” her lowered voice was hardly a whisper, but just hushed enough that Rhonda and Mark could not hear. Now that he could look at her more closely, he noticed that her face, though largely unchanged, had more edges than he remembered, her cheekbones high and framing her large eyes, pronounced even more with every word that left her shapely mouth. Half of curls on her head were braided into a crown around her head, ringlets puffing out over her shoulders. There was never a time when Draco didn’t find Hermione Granger objectively pretty, but seeing her for the first time since his trial, back when they were both teenagers, he had to admit to himself that she was a very beautiful woman. If she were just another muggle customer, Draco mused, he probably would be flirting with her at this point.

Gaining composure from what he could only recognize as the cold feeling of horror that had dropped to the pit of his stomach, Draco managed to retain his expression of disaffection. “At my job?” he asked, emulating her tone. “Well, now you can go off and tell Potter and Weasley where I’ve ended up. I’m sure they’d love to come and check up on Mean Old Malfoy.”

She looked taken aback. “That isn’t what I meant to”––

“Please follow the instructions on the screen and sign.” Draco placed her prescription in a small paper bag. Looking up at her once again, he said, now in a normal voice. “I’m at work, Granger. Let’s do this another time. Now, is there anything else that I can do for you today that doesn’t involve an inquisition?”

She narrowed her eyes. He knew that she was more than curious. “Another time?” she asked with curiosity.

Sighing, Draco whispered, “As in, outside of this pharmacy. You’re making my boss stare.”

Granger let out a short hum, pursing her lips to denote a forcefully restrained series of questions. “Well, you have my contact information.” Taking the bag, she turned on her heel, leaving him standing with his hands gripping his side of the counter so tightly that his knuckles paled to white. 

As the automatic door closed slowly behind his former school enemy, Draco let out an almost too-loud sigh, causing Rhonda to glance over from her paperwork and ask, “Did you know her? She seemed awfully familiar with you.” 

Of course, he thought. Even though she was his boss and professional superior, he could always, morosely, count on Rhonda’s knack for discretion. “Just an old classmate,” he nearly stuttered, still shellshocked. 

Rhonda gave him a side-eyed look. “She seemed a lot more than that.” Taking his lack of reply as confirmation, the middle-aged woman continued. “Not that it’s any of my business, but it looks like she lives right around the block. Maybe you _should_ call her…”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

Rhonda tutted at him, continuing to give him what she probably thought was a knowing look. Even though he had worked with her for several years and attended numerous work-related functions with Rhonda, Draco thought it would be just slightly inappropriate––not to mention illegal––to share with her the account of Granger being tortured by an evil witch (who just happened to be his aunt) inside his childhood mansion. This would entail his sharing his status as a veteran of a war that Rhonda didn’t even know had occurred alongside other not so savory details of his life as a child soldier for a pro-fascist organization.

And so, when Rhonda asked him why, he merely replied that it was complicated. Still, when he arrived home later that evening, he found Hermione Granger’s contact information written neatly in Rhonda’s handwriting onto a post it inside the front pocket of his backpack. _Am I really this desperate?_ Draco thought to himself.

 

**_Present day_ **

 

“And did you?” Now on his second cup of tea, MacMillan had decided to extend the visit on the basis of “some progress. 

“Did I what?”

“Call her.” Draco couldn’t tell if it was a command or a question. “I had no idea that Hermione lived in muggle London,” MacMillan went on. “Ever since the break up with Ron last year––sorry. I shouldn’t... “

“MacMillan, as much as you seem to have a taste for the maudlin, I promise you that Granger’s personal life is not something I care remotely about.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his middle finger and thumb. “But… do you think it would be okay? To call, I mean.”

MacMillan smiled. “Of course you don’t care, then…” The scribbling resumed. “So you haven’t called her?”

“Suppose I wanted to get your thoughts on it.”

MacMillan set down his notebook and looked up as he replied. “You wanted my thoughts?” 

“Well, it’s not like I could talk to anyone else.”

“You’re still in contact with some of your friends from school, no? Why not ask them?”

Because, he wanted to say, Theodore would probably encourage him to call Granger out of the need for some kind of gossip from the Wizarding World. Not all reformed Slytherins who volunteered for the program were as content (if that were a word to call it) in their muggle lives as Draco. Meanwhile, Blaise, who still retained a solid life as a wizard, would brush it off and tell Draco to move on because talking to Granger (or anyone from the “good side”) would throw a wrench in the routine that he had worked so hard to build after the war. Blaise was partially right, even in Draco’s imagined conversation. Taking care of himself first was more important than paying attention to Granger’s tendency to pry. But MacMillan could complicate his desire for self-preservation.

“Let’s think about what you said earlier, Mr. Malfoy,” the visiting wizard interrupted his thoughts. “You called your need to apologize a ‘duty.’ A duty, as you know, is usually something attached to a job or position. What about this makes it look as if you are not fulfilling your commitment to a job or position? You seem, despite your complaints, well-adjusted to your life here and have a generally good rapport with the muggles around you. Your neighbors seem to know you, and even though you maintain relations in the Wizarding World, you’ve never violated the terms of your agreement to live as a muggle for a decade after your release from house arrest. Can you tell me how you are failing to fulfill your duty?”

Draco never liked to recall that the Death Eater Reformation Program he had volunteered for as a teenager had been a tacit extension of his sentence. His parents had opted to leave the country indefinitely after his father had concluded his sentence in Azkaban (his mother was pardoned for lacking the Dark Mark and for her role in saving Harry Potter’s life), but Draco’s desire to no longer hide in the shadows of his family’s shame restrained him from following.

“Every person from our class who survived the war––including Slytherins––has moved on. They have lives with jobs and families. They’ve built friendships across bloodline and ideological borders. And me? I’m still hiding.” His voice began to shake. “When I agreed to do this, I thought it was a form of atonement, but lately, I feel like I’m still in the same place I was eight years ago.

“Do you know what that’s like, MacMillan? I’ve come to rejoice when I hear gossip from our––no, _your_ ––world from the one friend who continues to visit. I had goals too when I left Hogwarts, and it feels fucking pathetic to know that I wasted them all away for the sake of some childish adoration for fascism.”

MacMillan had stopped scribbling by then, listening intently to Draco’s words. “You know you can still have all of that.“

“In what world? Here?”

“Potentially.”

Draco scoffed.

“You wouldn’t marry a muggle, then? You’ve certainly dated a few.” MacMillan remarked.

“It’s not that.” And it really wasn’t. Well, not exactly. Draco had not been celibate the last seven years, by any means, but even when he liked the women he met, he struggled to reconcile himself now with the xenophobia and blood purity mania that had been instilled within him for his entire youth. In recognizing how much he bought into the arcane and violent ideals of his parents, he ultimately felt disgusted with himself. He could date, smile at, and even have sex with muggle women, but anything beyond the physically intimate felt, to him, like a cruel melancholic deceit.

“I say you call her if you want to and feel ready, but not if it’s going to make anything more difficult for you here. You only have three more years––remember that.” Thanking Draco for tea, MacMillan packed up his notebook and disapparated with a loud _pop_.

As per usual, the session ended with no real answer to his predicament. Draco picked off the post-it from the place that he had stuck it on his refrigerator and took it to his room, proceeding to stare at it for the next hour, If he called now, he thought, what could he be afraid of? On the one hand, it had been four days since his encounter with Hermione Granger, so the initial shock of seeing him had probably already worn off, making the conversation less distressing for both. On the other, the four days between the run-in could have made her regret giving him the opportunity to reach out. He thought of these and at least six other scenarios before finally picking up the phone.

After two rings, each heavy with the cold horror still resting at the pit of his stomach, she picked up.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded odd on the receiver, as if it were taken over by some mechanical force that made her sound uncannily like Hermione Granger and yet not. Telephones, despite years of using them, were still not his strong suit.

“Tomorrow,” he said, failing to greet her. “Meet me at the pub in front of the chemist’s. I get off early.”

“Malfoy?”

“Have you asked other pharmacists to call you to talk?” he asked. After the strange seconds of uncertainty that preceded the call, Draco started to feel much more himself the moment that he heard Granger scoff on the other line. “So… tomorrow.”

“What makes you think I’m going to be there?” her haughty response vibrated through.

“Well,” Draco said, “you seemed awfully curious the other day. I thought you might want to learn more about the whys and hows given your historical craving for all sorts of forbidden knowledge…” Wait, did he just find himself flirting with her?

“Malfoy.”

“But if I’m wrong, it’s not a problem. I just figured it would be good to catch up seeing as we’ll probably be seeing a lot more of each other now that I’m your local chemist.”

“Were you this chatty on Friday?”

Ignoring her, he continued. “I mean, I suppose that you could change pharmacies, but since you _asked_ me to call you, I used my own marvelous abilities of deduction to suspect that you might want to see me after all. Was I wrong?”

Without taking a beat, he heard her voice reply, following a subtle sigh. “Okay. What time?”

“Half past five?”

 

**_Wednesday night_ **

 

Nothing felt resolved, but one thing was certain. MacMillan would have a field day next Tuesday.

He couldn’t remember how he got there, inside of Hermione Granger’s apartment with his fingers trailing down her soft curves. It was dark, save for the small lamp that she had switched on when they arrived, limbs tangled into one another as Draco pushed her against a wall, hungrily claiming her lips. He dared not rise for air for he felt that if he detached himself from her, the pounding in his chest would overtake his ability to act so foolishly careless. When her hips ground against his, in response to his apparent arousal, she let out this moan that made him never want to move. The wool sweater that she had been wearing at the bar had been flung across the room along with his jacket and their shoes.

“Bedroom?” she managed to ask as his lips travelled to the nape of her neck.

 

**_Wednesday evening_ **

 

They were an hour and two drinks into their meeting ( _date?_ Draco briefly pondered), but it seemed like they had been talking for much, much longer. His head was now enjoying the buzz that had smoothened the sharper edges of their initial salutations that evening, emboldening his ability to carry on with their conversation inside the cramped space of the pub. They were sitting at small table at the corner of the room, chatting seemingly incessantly about their work, their lives after the war, and their respective opinions of the growing crowd around them.

“Sorry,” Draco apologized preemptively as he leaned in closer so she could hear him. “I didn’t expect it to be this packed on a Wednesday. What did you say you were doing for the MLE?”

She mirrored him and moved even closer, causing their knees to bump into each other under the table. He inadvertently inhaled her scent: lavender incense with a hint of soap and red wine. “I’m a researcher,” she said. “The Ministry is funding my archival work at the British Library.” Whereas she had spoken openly about the status of her friendship with Potter and the Weasleys, it took her longer, Draco noticed, to talk about work. He, meanwhile, had divulged everything: MacMillan, the Wizengamot, Rhonda, Mark… He even told her about the neighbor’s cat that visited him every other day to beg for a can of tuna. As they spoke, Draco noticed how physically close they had gotten; he could practically count her long eyelashes or, he thought cautiously, lean in and claim the wine tinted lips that had, for a while now, been curled into a smile _for him_.

“Can’t give me any details?” he asked, experimentally pushing one of his knees to rest between hers. Earning no protest from her, he left it there, while feeling her tentatively lean her own leg into his. _What was happening?_

The way that Granger twirled a strand of her hair around her finger as she thought about what she was going to say was not only hypnotizing, but outright charming. Had she always behaved like this in school? She exhaled contemplatively, leaning back enough to make Draco miss the warmth of her closeness. “The thing is,” she began, moving her hands to rest back on the table, “I don’t know how you might take this.”

It was his turn to lean back, but he couldn’t help but notice, with slight pride in himself, that their knees remained firmly in place. “What do you mean?” he inquired, narrowing his eyes in slight confusion.

Her gaze avoided him as she fiddled with the stem of her wine glass. “I can’t believe I’m sharing this with you,” she muttered with a nervous smile. “I’m working on a paper that debunks the historical foundations of blood purity.”

Draco cocked his head to the side. “I’m not sure I understand…” he said.

His words seemed to have triggered something very _Granger_ within her because as soon as he uttered his last word, it was as if she had transfigured into the book-loving know-it-all from his memory. “Currently, there’s no record in Wizarding law that contests the validity of blood purity claims; in fact, most law, written or unwritten, nearly fetishizes the so-called existence of the ‘pureblood wizard.’ But where did this idea come from? Didn’t most pureblood families consolidate their wealth by consorting with old muggle aristocratic lineages?”

Malfoy nodded, but wasn’t sure how to respond. Thankfully, this was Granger.

“If ideas and their histories are the product of power and intensifiers of power, it’s in the best interest of parts of the wizarding population who are seen as powerful to attach themselves to some sort of discourse of difference and identity politic, right? That’s your basic Foucault.” She was using her hands to speak now and Draco felt weirdly turned on by the sight of her passionate commentary. He didn’t know who or what “Foo-co” was, but he motioned for her to continue. “What if this… this _discourse of blood purity_ ,” she said every word very slowly, “served the same function as, say, ideas about race in muggle society? Meaning, what if blood purity is a myth created and repeated for the consolidation of power?”

The last parts, he totally understood. Growing up as a Malfoy and practicing in his identity as a Malfoy demanded an effort of belief. _Toujours pur_ , was the slogan? There was no _toujours_ ––no forever or every day––really for the Malfoy family. If there had been, why put it into words? Without a trace of evidence to denounce his father’s allegations of blood supremacy, however, it was much easier for Draco to buy into it all when he was much younger. It wasn’t until he went to Hogwarts and suffered from the complex of _not_ being superior to someone like Granger that he began to struggle with his ideologies.

“Granger, that sounds brilliant,” he said simply.

She shook her head. “You don’t have to fake interest, Malfoy. It’s really rather boring work. Just me spending hours in the archive trying to find clues that may not even exist!”

He let himself smile openly at her. “I’m serious, Granger. That sounds brilliant,” he repeated. Draco noticed a slight blush creep up her olive toned cheeks.

“I was a bit worried,” she said, easing her elbows back onto the table to be at level with his own posture. “About telling you given… everything. I’ve always felt as if I had to feel like a trespasser among witches and wizards,” she continued, “and it wasn’t until recently that I thought, ‘You know what, that’s all been total bullshit.’ Nothing is original or originary, Malfoy, and if I can, I would like to figure out a way to make life easier for people like… well, us, really.”

“Us?”

“I’m no more a victim of blood purism than you,” she replied plainly. For a moment, he thought that her eyes had flitted over to his left arm. Lately, _it_ was easy to forget that it was even there; when muggles saw it, they could think it was a stupid gap year mistake or a strange teenage goth phase. But among witches and wizards, Draco always found himself wondering if _it_ would ever come up. Without giving him a chance to ponder further, he felt her hand reach out to that very arm. “I mean that, Malfoy,” she added.

Malfoy swallowed, still trying to really understand the implications of Granger’s words. “Granger, I’m sorry that I ever thought I had the right to make you feel like that. These years have been eye opening for me, as much as I hate to admit it, and I know that I have a lot of work to do, but… I am sorry.”

She nodded, still inclined towards him. “I guess this program has been… useful?”

Draco shrugged, still smiling. “It’s made me think about things differently,” he said honestly. “But right now, I’m really glad that I get to share it with someone who clearly understands it… MacMillan is…”

“Kind of a dolt, right?” Granger finished his sentence. “Sorry. He’s lovely and all, but I do wonder how he managed to keep that job at Muggle Relations. I’ve seen him cross a busy road before and everything about him screams clueless wizard.”

“Tell me about it…” His voice trailed off as he looked down to their empty glasses. They were once again leaning so close to one another that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his face. “So,” he said, curling the side of his mouth into a smirk and leaning even closer. “What next?”

For a moment, he could see the machinations of her overly analytical mind taking over, making him wonder if he had misread the signals. But when she didn’t pull back, Draco found himself softly brushing his lips against hers, reaching a hand to gently cup the side of her face. And when she, once again, did not pull back as he pressed his forehead against her, locking their gazes, he moved his hand to the side of her neck, lightly caressing her pulse and prompting her to shiver.

 

**_Wednesday night_ **

 

Digging his fingers into Granger’s hair, Draco’s brain fought to make sense of how he had ended up with the witch straddling his hips on her couch as her hands unbuttoned his dark grey flannel shirt, revealing his simple, white undershirt. He felt the muscles of his abdomen contract as her finger raked past his chest and to the waistband of his jeans. Her dress was hiked up, and with her tights discarded at the other side of the sofa, he revelled in the sensation of her smooth skin as he cupped her backside, pulling her closer into their kiss.

“Malfoy,” she breathed, breaking their contact. He started to kiss the tops of her full breasts over the fabric of her dress, trailing the hand in her hair down to fumble with the zipper. “ _Malfoy_ ,” she repeated, her voice higher pitched.

“Hmm,” he finally whispered back, half in a daze.

“We’re not having sex, okay?” She rolled herself over to sit next to him, leaving him cold and confused as her head rested near his, one of her legs still draped across his thigh.

“No?” he asked, meeting her gaze while inching his fingers up her exposed leg.

“It’s not as if I wouldn’t… I mean, Merlin… you’re… you’re…”

“Bloody gorgeous?” he interrupted with a cocky smile. For the second time that night, he watched as her skin was graced with a glorious shade of pink.

“Time has been kind to you.”

“And to you… But we don’t have to, you know,” he swallowed, resting his hand on the curve of her thigh, “do it.”

“It would just be awkward right now.”

“Awkward?” he asked, snapping his head up to look at her with puzzlement. The anxiety set back in. Did she mean awkward as in she was too self conscious to have sex with him after only drinks? Did she mean awkward as in she felt wrong about having sex with a former Death Eater?

Noticing his panic, Granger placed her hand gently on his chest, biting her lip nervously as she tried to rationalize her thoughts. Her leg was now curled back next to its double by Granger’s side of the couch, and the loss of contact sent his mind reeling.

Did she remember that she hated him? His mind started to search for hidden meanings behind their conversation earlier that evening. Had he misread something?

Starting to feel self-conscious, Draco abruptly stood up. “I…” he began.

“Malfoy, I didn’t”–– If she looked confused, panicked, or angry, Draco couldn’t tell. The only thing in his line of vision was the door on the other side of the room. His chest constricted as he felt his heart clench and his palms grow clammy with anxiety.

  
“I better get going.” Without wasting time to search for his jacket, he bolted. The October air outside was cool and sobering to his skin, but he felt himself nevertheless choking on his own breath. “ _Fuck,_ ” he muttered to himself as he hailed a cab.  _What did you do?_


End file.
